After a typically exciting pre-credits sequence, Casino Royale -- like almost all James Bond films before it -- employs the tried-and-true image guaranteed to raise the pulses of Bond fans all across the globe. The dapper agent strolls into the frame, whirls around and fires directly at the circular camera eye while the classic 007 theme plays on the soundtrack. Only ...
Where's the music? Monty Norman's familiar riff does show up during the end credits, but it's conspicuously missing from the beginning. Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson insisted that the franchise would largely be starting from scratch with this, the 21st film, but let's face it: Not employing that beloved tune was a serious miscalculation.
Fortunately, it's about the only one. In most other respects, Casino Royale ranks among the best Bond films produced over the past 44 years -- it's just a shade away from being worthy enough to breathe the rarefied air of Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me and the criminally underrated For Your Eyes Only. It easily swats aside the Pierce Brosnan Bond flicks, while new star Daniel Craig vies with Timothy Dalton for second place as the screen's best 007 (it's doubtful Sean Connery will ever relinquish the gold).
Casino Royale was actually the first Bond book penned by Ian Fleming, so it's fitting that it serves as the source material for this refashioning of the series. (The previous Casino Royale picture was a feeble 1967 spoof starring Peter Sellers, David Niven and Woody Allen.) Basically, this new film wipes away the previous 20 installments by going back to when James Bond was first promoted by M (Judi Dench, the only holdover from the Brosnan years) to the level of a double-oh agent with a license to kill. Bond's first mission of import is to enter a poker tournament being held in Montenegro's Casino Royale, where he's to prevent Eurotrash villain Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a personal financier of the world's terrorist organizations, from emerging victorious and collecting the sizable pot. Aiding him in his assignment is Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a treasury agent who proves to be Bond's match in the verbal sparring department.
The character of Vesper Lynd -- one of the sharpest women in the Bond oeuvre -- is just one of the many pleasing touches on view in this slam-bang chapter. The most notable differences can be found in the secret agent himself: As intensely played by Craig, this James Bond isn't a suave playboy quick with the quip and bathed in an air of immortality but rather a sometimes rough-hewn bruiser who makes mistakes, usually keeps his sense of humor in check, and, because he's just starting out, possesses more flashes of empathy than we're used to seeing in our cold-as-ice hero.
Forsaking the special effects that ended up dominating the series (too often, it was hard to differentiate a Brosnan Bond from a video game), Casino Royale relies more on stunt work and mano-a-mano skirmishes, confrontations that are up close and personal. This results in a couple of terrific action scenes, one involving a foot chase across a construction site. Even the more staid sequences, such as the actual poker tournament, crackle with a level of excitement missing from most of the recent installments.
Casino Royale is so successful in its determination to jump-start the series by any means necessary that it tampers with winning formulas left and right. When a bartender asks Bond if he prefers his martini shaken or stirred, the surly agent snaps back, "Do I really look like I give a damn?" Blasphemous? Perhaps. But also bloody invigorating.
BOBBY
**
DIRECTED BY Emilio Estevez
STARS Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone
If Robert Altman had been dropped on his head as a toddler, Bobby is the sort of movie he might have ended up making instead of the likes of Nashville and The Player. Writer-director Emilio Estevez has clearly adopted Altman's MO for this ambitious effort that's only tangentially about Robert F. Kennedy -- we get the all-star cast, the overlapping dialogue, the furtive glances at the ever-changing American landscape -- but despite a few scattered scenes worth preserving, the overall picture is shallow, tedious and ultimately insignificant.
When I first heard about Bobby way back when, I presumed it would be a biopic about the man, and I experienced a sudden panic attack upon scanning the cast list and realizing that Estevez might have been insane enough to hand Ashton Kutcher the title role. Instead, Estevez's Bobby is like Oliver Stone's JFK in that it doesn't focus on the man as much as it focuses on the events surrounding his death (Bobby primarily appears in newsreel footage and is played by an unknown, filmed from behind, during the assassination sequence). But all comparisons end there: For all its fast and loose playing with the facts, JFK was a remarkable movie that, except for some tepid domestic scenes between the Kevin Costner and Sissy Spacek characters, exclusively focused on the Kennedy legacy and how his death impacted a nation. Bobby, on the other hand, is as much about Robert Kennedy as Stone's World Trade Center was about 9/11 -- it uses a national tragedy as a springboard for a more generic Hollywood product.
Set in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel in the hours leading up to Kennedy's assassination at the hands of Sirhan Sirhan, Bobby is inspired by the 1932 Oscar winner Grand Hotel (referenced in the film) as well as by the sort of multistory TV shows Estevez grew up with (Hotel, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, heck, maybe even the short-lived Supertrain). So while Democratic staffers are busy prepping for Bobby's visit, other soggy dramas are being played out in the site's corridors and rooms. The hotel manager (William H. Macy) passes the time by cheating on his wife (Sharon Stone) with a switchboard operator (Heather Graham) and by handing walking papers to the bigoted employee (Christian Slater) in charge of kitchen operations. A Mexican busboy (Freddy Rodriguez), upset that he has to miss an important Dodgers game because he's being forced to work two consecutive shifts, finds a sympathetic ear in the philosophical cook (Laurence Fishburne). A boozy nightclub singer (Demi Moore) picks fights with her manager-husband (Estevez). A former Ambassador doorman (Anthony Hopkins) reflects on all the great leaders he greeted over the years at the front of the posh establishment. A hippie (Kutcher) sells drugs from the comfort of his hotel room. And so it goes.
The film flickers to life whenever it gets around to focusing on its title character. There are a few nice speeches about the American future that Bobby represents if he can get elected president (folks often reflect on how this country might have turned out had JFK lived, but the same can obviously be said regarding his brother), and the final portion of the picture, with Kennedy's own words being heard over the aftermath of his fateful encounter with Sirhan Sirhan, exhibits a power and poignancy missing from the rest of the movie.
Despite the impressive assemblage gathered here, few of the actors make much of an impression: The good ones (Hopkins, Macy, Fishburne) are left to drift, the bland ones (Rodriguez, Elijah Wood, Nick Cannon) fail to register, and the bad ones (Helen Hunt, Moore, Kutcher) become increasingly annoying. Only Sharon Stone, as an aging beautician stung by the words and actions of those around her, musters up anything resembling an inner life. What her struggles have to do with Robert Kennedy or the era I'm sure I don't know -- adultery and ageism are hardly issues confined to the 1960s -- but she's the only cast member worth remembering at check out time.
THE FOUNTAIN
**1/2
DIRECTED BY Darren Aronofsky
STARS Hugh Jackson, Rachel Weisz
The word from the Venice Film Festival, where The Fountain first saw the light of day, was that the latest work from writer-director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi) is a dull and pretentious slice of sci-fi silliness, at once too cerebral and too slow-moving. Funny, a lot of folks once said the same thing about Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and now it's routinely considered one of the two or three greatest science fiction films ever made.
Mind you, I'm not placing The Fountain on that esteemed level, but to dismiss this out of hand is to miss the overriding passion that Aronofsky pours into every frame of his wildly uneven but always watchable epic. Perhaps inspired by his muse, real-life fiancée (and mother of his child) Rachel Weisz, Aronofsky has penned a love story that spans the centuries -- yet that's only part of the tale. The auteur has also set his sights on nothing less than matters of life and death, using his ambitious yarn to examine the manner in which death is viewed -- as a finality, as a rebirth, as a disease, as a shot at immortality. Ultimately, the film's philosophy may be no more weighty than the "Circle of Life" theory espoused by The Lion King, but because Aronofsky offers so much food for thought (and refuses to spell out anything), the film is one of those rarities that can be interpreted six different ways by six different people. The dozen other folks in the room, however, will have long thrown up their hands about 10 minutes in.
Jumping back and forth between past, present and future, the film stars Hugh Jackman as Tomas, a Spanish conquistador sent by Queen Isabel (Weisz) to locate the Tree of Life. It also casts the actor as Tommy Creo (the surname meaning "I create" in Latin and "I believe" in Spanish), a scientist working 24/7 to find a cure for his wife Izzy (Weisz again), who's dying of a brain tumor; his only hope seems to be the recuperative powers found in a piece of tree in his possession. Finally, Jackman appears as a Tom of the future (Tom Tomorrow?), a bald, 26th-century loner who travels in an orb through space with a tree that contains the spirit of his deceased beloved. Clearly, we're not in Kansas anymore.
I wish that The Fountain were longer than its 95 minutes: A troubled production history doubtless contributed to its short length, choppy structure and thin characterizations -- or it simply could be that Aronofsky's reach exceeded his grasp. Either way, it's easy to see why some viewers will despise this while others will adore it -- although in the middle, I lean toward the latter group, and further believe this will benefit from repeat viewings. One thing's for sure, though: I was wrong when, just last month, I wrote that Marie Antoinette would be 2006's premiere love-it-or-leave-it title. That throne has already been usurped.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Christopher Guest's so-called "mockumentaries" have been blessed with a generosity of spirit, a willingness on the part of their creator to allow a different member of the tight-knit ensemble to break out in each production. In 1996's Waiting for Guffman, it was Guest himself who shined brightest, as the sweet-natured theatrical director Corky St. Clair. In 2000's Best In Show, Fred Willard was a comic marvel as the lewd play-by-play announcer Buck Laughlin. And Eugene Levy's work in 2003's A Mighty Wind, as the fragile folk singer Mitch, was so memorable that he deservedly earned the Best Supporting Actor award from the New York Film Critics Circle.
In For Your Consideration, the spotlight belongs to Catherine O'Hara, though it must be noted that Parker Posey trails by only a couple of steps. The film is Guest and company's swipe at all the hoopla surrounding Oscar season, with O'Hara, Posey, Harry Shearer and Christopher Moynihan cast as actors whose latest film, an indie project called Home For Purim, is being touted as a possible Academy Award nominee. As Marilyn Hack, the cast member deemed most likely to earn an Oscar nod, O'Hara delivers a tour de force performance, channeling all the hopefulness, rage and despair that will doubtless strike a chord with aging, frequently unemployed and quickly forgotten thespians all across Los Angeles. Posey also benefits from landing one of her best screen roles to date, as the eccentric young actress whose defenses against future career disillusionment slide as she similarly gets caught up in the prospect of landing a coveted nomination.
The knowing screenplay by Guest (who also plays the Purim director) and Levy (cast as an obnoxious agent) yields plenty of laughs until the last act, at which point the resolution of the Oscar nom race becomes obvious to predict and the subsequent grilling of the non-nominees comes across as both cruel and unlikely. Clearly, out of these four Guest titles, For Your Consideration will have to settle for fourth place. But when one looks at the stellar competition, that's hardly meant as a dig.
TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny gets off to a fast and furious start. We see the portly kid JB (Troy Gentile) enduring a verbal trashing from his uptight father (Meat Loaf) before receiving words of encouragement and advice from the Ronnie James Dio poster hanging on his bedroom door. Dio's advice: Get thee to Hollywood.
And so it's off to La La Land, and by the time he arrives, JB is now a grown man played by Jack Black. He hooks up with a struggling musician called KG (Kyle Gass), and after a smidgen of soul-searching and a lot of bong hits, the two elect to become the band known as Tenacious D.
And there we have the origin story of Tenacious D, already a cult band thanks to their music videos and brief TV series. The rest of the story concerns the duo's efforts to obtain a magical guitar pick made from the tooth of Satan, but continuity isn't this meandering movie's strong suit. This is basically a series of comic riffs designed to entertain viewers under the influence, with a barrage of hot-and-cold jokes, a pair of extended -- and shockingly unfunny -- cameos by Ben Stiller and Tim Robbins, and the usual assortment of bodily function gags (it's perhaps no coincidence that one of the actors is called Gass and one of the music composers is named Gross).
Maybe it's my age, but I laughed harder when Cheech and Chong went this route with the cult hit Up In Smoke. The key difference is that a viewer could enjoy C&C's film alone and without the aid of a joint. But in the case of The Pick of Destiny, you'll probably be better off watching it with a bud, if you catch my (double) meaning.
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